Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

At long last....my Lenco is singing again! Its taken me nearly a year to get the energy together to do this, but I've now got a Rega 350 arm mounted on a lovely piece of purpleheart. Not sure why, but I didnt ever feel confident with my Decca International arm-I was never sure that I'd got it set up correctly. Downside is that the Goldring cartridge I bought for the Rega arm somehow seems to have lost its stylus, so Ive had to mount the crappy Ortofon one from my old Dual deck on it at the moment until I can find my other cartridge thats lurking around somewhere. There are times when I wish I was more organised and didnt lose things But still...I'm lying on my bed listening to the vinyl Ive not had chance to hear for over a year....bliss!!! Managed to aquire some Jah Wobble on vinyl a few months ago-that man is a real maestro-I feel like a teenager again!

Sorry-me again...All I can say is......wow!!!!!!!! I'd forgotten how the lenco takes music to another dimension...am totally blown away, just as I was the first time I heard Gilbodavid's Lenco over two years ago. The music is ALIVE...my room is throbbing with the beat...makes the CD player Ive been listening to for the past year seem one dimensional. Its got Va va voom....Vive la Lenco!!!

Oops...sorry...meant Rega 300 arm, not 350. Was getting carried away!!

Hi Helen, great to hear from you again, and that you are hearing the Lenco again! The magic of it never ceases to astound me, and I've lived with it for nigh-on two decades now, now THERE's value for money :-)!

Oops, and great news on the marble plinth Mario, you know of course that I'm watching with great interest, as my original idea back in the early '90s when it seemed actual manufacturing might occur, was the building of Lenco-derived decks out of romantic Parian and Naxian marble, famed in poetry for centuries. Ah, such grand visions...then the bottom fell out of the analogue market, falling to its lowest point and indeed seeming like the long-foretold END. Glad to see it wasn't so, and in fact the reverse!!

Up here, I made a booboo and blew a fuse on my Sony, and made a Great Discovery: my AR2ax's, with which manly He-Man 100-watt SS amps struggle, is easily driven to great volume and with superb tight bass by my 25-watt Class A push-pull tube amp! No more dramatic verification can there be of the designer's cautioning that the speakers were designed for the output transformers of tube amps, having been designed in the '60s. This means nigh-on world-class sound can be achieved at an incredible budget price: match up the superb AR2ax's to a vintage Dynaco amp for an incredible end result. I was amazed at the increase in soundstage depth and specificity when I switched from the Klipsch - which are quite good at this relative to some other speakers - to the ARs, which clunky-looking as they are, definitely look like they shouldn't image at all. And, the predicted increase in PRaT and magic, along with against-the-evidence-of-the-eyes excellent detail and tonal neutrality. And where's the hidden subwoofer? I love these speakers!! Terrible fun swapping all these vintage legends in and out too, each set-up emphasizing yet another strength of the Lenco, and commanding respect for those legendary designers (Paul Klipsch, Henry Kloss, Herb Vilchur, Oskar Heil...) and each I could easily live with. But at these prices, why choose only one? I have got to try a Dynaco ST-70 with these speakers at some point, likely at the end of the summer/early Fall.

The Ikeda/Denon match-up is very good, very detailed (making the Denon DL-103"E" sound like a high-end MC in this respect), and with no hint of fierceness whatsoever. Further listening ahead. Have fun all!

Hi All. My new Shelter 5000 cartridge arrived last week and after about 25 hours is starting to make some real music. Unfortunately, I'm experiencing a lot of sub-sonic rumble. I can tell that part of it is coming from the bearing and I think some of it is coming from my idler wheel. It felt rough when touching it as it spun. I've tried taking a Q-tip with tape-head cleaner to it and it seems to get better but then gets rough again. Was it a mistake to use the cleaner? Is the old rubber susceptible to fraying? Would appreciate some advice from the Lenco gurus who've been around the block with this.